B.C. axes waiting list fees for spots

Mom says she spent $650 to put son on lists

Most B.C. child care providers are now banned from charging parents with fees to get on a waiting list.

Parents and advocates have long raised concerns about waiting list fees charged by some daycares which could range from $25 to more than $200 simply to put a child's name on the list.

For many parents this could add up to hundreds of dollars with no guarantees they would get a spot.

Vancouver mom Amy Lee said she had grudgingly forked over about $650 “out of desperation” to put her son on lists. Many daycares didn't charge to be on a waiting list, she said, but there were a few that did.

“It didn't feel like you had much choice when you're looking for a spot and you want to maximize your chances, and every facility had a waiting list,” she said.

Lee said she understands some centres might need to charge for waiting lists to cover administrative costs, but hoped for more transparency so parents

Child care is expensive enough without fees adding up before families have secured child care.

can know where they stand. “Don't charge me if you know there's no realistic chance I'm going to get in,” she said.

The wait-list fee ban applies to the approximately 95 per cent of daycares in B.C. that receive provincial support. The move was announced by the province last December as part of its 2024-25 funding requirements for daycares participating in its fee-reduction program. It does not apply to facilities that are entirely private. The province says about five per cent of providers, mostly in major cities, were charging families a waiting list fee, usually non-refundable.

“Child care is expensive enough without fees adding up before families have secured child care,” Mitzi Dean, the minister of state for child care, said in a statement. “Eliminating wait-list fees will mean that families no longer face having to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars simply to find a child care space.”

Abolishing the fees removes a barrier to finding high-quality child care and ensures more equitable access to child care, said the province. The fee-reduction program helps more than 128,000 families save as much as $900 per month per child, it said. The government has also created more than 15,000 $10-a-day child-care spaces in B.C.

To find daycare providers with the fee reduction, search the B.C. government's child-care map.